Regeneration
In the Borg and First Contact '' |image= |series= |production=40358-49/223 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong |director= David Livingston |imdbref=tt0572230 |guests=Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Forrest, Jim Fitzpatrick as Commander Williams, Chris Wynne as Doctor Monger, Bonita Friedericy as Rooney, John Short as Drake and Paul Scott as Lt. Foster |previous_production=Cogenitor |next_production=First Flight |episode=ENT S02E23 |airdate=7 May 2003 |previous_release=Cogenitor |next_release=First Flight |story_date(s)= 1 March 2153 |previous_story=Cogenitor |next_story=First Flight }} =Summary= A team of researchers discover remains of a crashed spaceship in the Arctic Circle, finding several humanoids with cybernetic implants frozen in the wreckage. Two bodies are taken to a nearby compound to be studied. The scientists marvel at the nanoprobes that begin to repair the long dead aliens. Suddenly one of the seemingly dead subjects attacks the scientists, assimilating them. Using scavenged wreckage to enhance the transport, they then escape into space, upgrading it with a faster than standard warp drive and weapons. Admiral Forrest orders Enterprise to rescue the "kidnapped" researchers. They soon receive a distress call from a Tarkalean freighter, and they arrive to discover the ship under attack from the enhanced transport. Captain Jonathan Archer tries to disable their weapons, but the ship jumps to warp speed. Archer brings the survivors to Sickbay, and finds their situation reminiscent of a Zefram Cochrane story he remembers (relating to first contact). The assimilated crew soon awaken, and in the ensuing melee Doctor Phlox is infected with nanoprobes. They escape, and Lieutenant Reed then finds them modifying ship's systems, and learns their phase pistols are ineffective. Archer, left with no other options, orders the section to be de-pressurized. Reed then begins upgrading the pistols, while Phlox treats himself with "omicron radiation" to destroy the nanoprobes. Enterprise again catches up with the transport, but the recent modifications suddenly activate and shut down weapons and propulsion. Soon after the aliens hail Enterprise and say, "You will be assimilated, resistance is futile". In response, Archer and Reed board the ship with upgraded pistols, plant explosives, and beam out. Commander Tucker troubleshoots the alien modifications thereby restoring main power to Enterprise. With the transport crippled, Archer realizes the altered crew members are too far gone and orders the transport's destruction. Later, a recovering Phlox informs Archer that while infected he kept hearing a repeating numerical sequence - Earth's coordinates sent somewhere into the Delta Quadrant. Sub-Commander T'Pol states it would take almost 200 years to reach its destination, but Archer remains troubled. =Errors and Explanations= Nitpicking # The Borg ship went down 90 years ago, and the corpses are covered only with a centimeter of snow. There may have been more, which had – relatively recently - moved for some reason, allowing for the wreckage to become visible. # There is Reed's remark: "Research team, heavily armed. How did these aliens manage to overpower them?" My question is rather since when Earth-based research teams are heavily armed in the first place. It may be because of the polar bears, but Reed's statement sounds as if research teams were always armed. Not necessarily – Reed’s actual words were ‘The research team were heavily armed’, and there was a distinct pause before he said it, as if he had only just remembered that fact, meaning it may be rare for research teams to be armed, with weapons issued to this team as a precaution. # Archer has never hesitated to consult Daniels's omniscient database to find something from the future, so why didn't he look up the Borg? Only because it would have given the death blow to the "don't say my name" trick? More likely that there wasn't anything about the Borg in the database when he and Reed looked up information about the Suliban stealth cruiser. IMDB Continuity # At the end, the Borg sent a subspace message aimed for the delta quadrant and that it would take approximately 200 years for the message to be received. Taking the distance to Borg space (70,000 LY or so based on Voyager), this implies that messages traveling in subspace travel about 350 times the speed of light. In the season 1 TNG episode...Where No Man Has Gone Before, Data says it will take 51 years, 10 months, 9 weeks, 16 days (which is a different way of saying 52 years, 1 week, and 6 days...or 52.038 years) for a subspace message to reach Starfleet, which is approximately 2.7 million LY away. This would calculate messages travelling in subspace as going 51,885.51 times the speed of light. The lower speed could either be due the relative primitiveness of the transport's communication system, or the transmission being slowed down due to gravitational fields en route, which would not be present between M33 and the Milky Way, when the Enterprise D sent it’s message in Where No Man Has Gone Before. Nit Central # Sparrow47 on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 11:04 pm: The whole thing starts with some Borg drones that fell to Earth in the Arctic after being blown off the Enterprise in First Contact. So this means that not only did the Borg not get burnt to a crisp in the atmosphere, but they then suffered no ill effects from being buried in ice for nearly a century! Darth Sarcasm on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 4:16 pm:'' Right, because the Borg have never shown resiliency before. A Borg scout ship did crash on a planet, leaving a survivor who later became Hugh. It's inconceivable that Borg technology would not equip the ship with the means to survive planetary re-entry. The existence of the Borg you can buy, but not this particular episode. Sparrow47 on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 5:27 pm: Oh yeah? The crucial difference between this and I Borg was that they had a ship. From what I understand, the drones in this episode supposedly drop in from orbit. That's a lot harder to survive without, say, a suit of some sort. I guess they could have force fields, but it seems pretty sketchy to me… Darth Sarcasm on Sunday, May 04, 2003 - 8:50 pm: My understanding is that they find Borg wreckage from the sphere that was destroyed in FC, not just drones lying in the snow. Even if they were just bodies, why couldn't those nifty Borg shields that can deflect maximum-setting phaser blasts also protect their bodies from the heat of re-entry? I find none of this difficult to buy according to what has already been established. Sparrow47 on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 6:35 am: If that's true, then that's even more suspicious, because that sphere blowed up but good. We'll see… Darth Sarcasm on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 10:07 am: Keep in mind, Sparrow… First, it's not like the sphere disintegrated. The space shuttle Challenger "blowed up but good," yet large pieces were recovered. Additionally, we only see one side of the explosion. So even if a sizable piece of the sphere couldn't be seen in the film, a larger piece could have broken away off-camera (hidden behind the explosion). Sparrow47 on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 11:17 am: True, but the Challenger wasn't nearly as far off the ground as the Borg sphere was. So not only would any large pieces of the ship have to survive the explosion, they'd have to get through re-entry as well. Josh M on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 11:46 am: While you have a point there Sparrow… The Borg are much more advanced than anything on the Challenger. We already know that the Federation uses stronger, more durable hull materials, the Borg most likely even moreso. ScottN on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 11:53 am: You also have Columbia which was 40 miles up and going 12500 mph. Or Skylab and Mir, which were in orbit, and hit the ground in big pieces. If a big enough chunk of the sphere came out of the explosion, it quite conceivably could have survived. Sparrow47 on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 7:58 pm: I really don't believe that any sizeable chunk could've survived the explosion, but I will of course conceede that it's possible. And Darth, yes, it makes sense that the Borg would have that technology, but how well could it function when the pod was blown to smithereens? Hmmmmm...' # ''The Undesirable Element on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 10:54 am: THOUGHTS ON WHY THE BORG KNEW OF THE FEDERATION AND THE FEDERATION KNEW OF THE BORG PRIOR TO Q-WHO: 1. It's in the Federation database that the El-Aurian homeworld was destroyed by the Borg. Guinan and 70 some others were rescued by the Enterprise-B. I find it difficult to believe that NO ONE ever mentioned anything about these mechanical monsters. KAM on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 6:37 am: You talk as if those two things are related. IIRC Guinan said the Borg destroyed her world 200 hundreds years prior to Q Who. She also said she wasn't there at the time. Why was Guinan's people so tight-lipped about this? Then again, Q did say Guinan was dangerous.Marc Lechowicz on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 4:04 am: Because the Borg had destroyed her homeworld 200 years earlier in a different quadrant At least I'm assuming they did. Other than a couple of isolated incidents, there was no evidence that they'd been to the Alpha Quadrant by the time of Q Who? Given that the Borg are about 50 thousand light years away at that point, she'd have no more need to warn the Federation about them then she would about the Kazon. ''' 2. The Borg destroyed the Federation and Romulan outposts along the Neutral Zone almost a year before Picard's first meeting with them. ''KAM on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 6:37 am:'' I believe it actually scooped them up rather than destroyed them. Pick, pick, pick.Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) The Borg likely did both, scooping the outposts up, and then ‘destroying’ them, by taking them apart as a source of raw material – as opposed to cooked material! (Badoom tish!)' I've always suspected a Federation coverup involving the Borg. This episode could give further evidence to that. 'KAM on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 6:37 am: Why would it be a good thing to hide evidence of this dangerous enemy? Wouldn't it be smarter to have as many people as possible working on the problem so the Borg could eventually be dealt with? Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) That would increase the risk of mass panic – not a good idea!' # ''Ed Watson on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 7:18 pm: If I could just interject here, you all are looking for a reason why this plot doesn't work within the Star Trek universe. Let's take a look at the 20th century where real life TV writers are trying to keep this franchise going. I don't care how they spin it or how they explain it, to me it only means the writers have run out of not only good ideas but any ideas. My only thought within the Star Trek universe comes not from how they explain the past, but how they explain the future. Star Fleet knew nothing of the Borg in Q Who, so I'm just waiting for some lame time travelling reset button to get pushed at the end of this episode. Sparrow47 on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 7:58 pm: Ed, this episode actually doesn't violate the "Starfleet knew nothing about the Borg prior to Q Who premise because at that point, the events of First Contact hadn't happened yet. Therefore at that point, if someone had time traveled back to "Enterprise"'s time and gone to the North Pole, they wouldn't find any Borg because said Borg wouldn't have been deposited yet. Does this make sense? Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 8:33 pm: What? The events of First Contact had most certainly already happened by the time of both Enterprise and Q Who," otherwise this whole warp drive thing would never have existed. Sparrow47 on Monday, May 05, 2003 - 9:20 pm: No, because the precipitating event of First Contact was the second Borg attack, which happened after Q Who." It's another one of those non-linear things, ala the Prophets of DS9 (so I hope I don't have to tell you how that works!) ''Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:16 am:''Except it's not non-linear. Zefram Cochrane's warp flight occurred before Enterprise, which occurred before TNG and Q Who," which occurred before First Contact. Of course, this is why I don't like time travel plots - they allow writers to fudge things by making aspects of the plot completely arbitrary. # The Undesirable Element on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 8:21 am: Why the Feds Would Have a Borg Coverup: 1. Afraid that Federation enemies would try to ally themselves with the Borg if news of them were to leak out. (Given that the El-Aurians were rescued when Klingon-Federation tensions were high, this would be the most likely explanation) Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:16 am: The El-Aurians were rescued in Generations, after the Khitomer Accords. The Undesirable Element on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 10:41 am: Yesterday's Enterprise (TNG) establishes that Klingon-Federation tensions were still high for at least 22 years prior to The Next Generation. Gorkon says to Kirk in STVI, "If there is going to be a brave new world our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it." This implied (to me anyway) that all the problems were not going to be solved over night. According to the "Star Trek Chronology (not canon but just throwing it out here) the events of "Star Trek: Generations" take place less than a year after "Star Trek: VI". 2. Did not want the public at large to think that there was an enemy out there that the Federation couldn't defeat thus preventing fear and paranoia. Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:16 am: Seems unlikely. 3. The Feds didn't believe the El-Aurians. ("So you're telling me that these mechanical men flying around in big Rubik's Cubes came by and scooped up your cities? Sure they did.") Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:16 am: So the Feds are like Chief Wiggum and the Springfield police? Just some possibilities. Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:16 am: Not really, there's no actual evidence to support any of this. It's just speculation. The Undesirable Element on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 10:41 am: Explain to me how any of the scenerios I explained is completely impossible? I would list my scenerios as "possibilities". Not very likely ones but just because something is improbable doesn't mean that it's impossible. That's what conspiracies are all about. Snickerdoodle on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 3:04 pm: I actually like Sparrow's theory, if only that it means with regards to continuity all bets are off. Does Timeline B's future run fairly close to TOS's and TNG's history, or is there a new future in store for the fledgling Federation? Does the Federation itself even come into existence? Sarek, Spock, Kirk, Picard, do they exist and lead the same lives? Hm… Sparrow47 on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 6:14 pm: Well, by now it's clear that "Enterprise" is in a completely separate timeline of its own, so who knows? Josh Gould-DS9 Moderator (Jgould) on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:29 pm: That sort of invalidates its purpose as a "prequel" series, doesn't it? Snickerdoodle on Tuesday, May 06, 2003 - 9:31 pm: Well maybe, but the (temporal) damage is already done. We can't blame every discrepancy on Section 31. # elwood on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 6:17 pm: They capture the expedition's ship which is warpcapable? Why would these arctic explorers have a warp-capable ship? It could be an essential requirement for transport ships of this era to be fitted with warp drive. # Why do they use a shuttle commonly used on Enterprise to get to the camp site? There surely are other, planetary transport vessels. Perhaps it’s a standard design. # The woman finds the first Borg body with her scanner, the second after falling over him, after she scanned the same area.LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: She hadn’t scanned that second area yet. She scanned one area to her right, then turned back to the left to move forward before bumping her foot into the drone. She hadn’t yet scanned that spot. # Why didn't the Enterprise-E crew clean any Borg ship debris from earth in 2063? That could have revealed their presence to the Vulcans. # The Borg's behavior is kind of weird here: Why would they leave Earth? So many people to assimilate here! They didn’t have sufficient resources! # They kept firing upon Enterprise after they disabled her. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: They hadn’t disabled her hull plating or the transporter. Perhaps they wanted to do so before assimilating it. Indeed, when hull plating is completely gone right before Archer and Reed beam back from the Arctic transport, Hoshi then says that the Borg are cutting into the hull. # They transport the 3 remaining Borgs off Enterprise at the end. WHY? These could do a lot of assimilation on the ship. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: The Enterprise’s bomb just blew the transport’s EPS manifold, and big hole in its hull, so the Borg have to repair it. On a Cube with hundreds of thousands of drones, this isn’t an issue, but there’s a limited number on transport to make repairs. There were 29 to start off with. Archer and Reed killed eight of them. Enterprise security killed another two on C Deck. Four more are still there. That makes 15 left on the transport. With other ships functions to maintain (they began to power up weapons when Archer and Reed beamed back), they probably recalled them because they needed all available drones, and chose not to take more time assimilating more. # oregano on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 7:25 pm: I have a feeling the rest of the series will be the war with the Borg. The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 8:03 pm: Oh come on! You can't honestly believe that? It is stated at the end of the episode that it will take about 200 years for the Borg in the Delta Quadrant to get the signal. I think we've seen the last of the Borg on Enterprise. The creators pushed the envelope here explaining the Borg's presence and I think they got away with it pretty well (not perfectly, but they didn't bungle it up too badly). I hope they know better than to push their luck by having them come back. They certainly wrote the ending as though the Borg will not be coming back until the 24th century. Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 4:39 am: Not necesarily. These Borg & their nanoprobes survived their sphere being blown up by quantum torpedoes, the heat of re-entry, the impact with the ground & being frozen. By the end of this episode we had two Tarkalean Borgs floating in space (and we saw in Unity that the Borg can be revived after exposure to space) and while the Borgified ship was blown up did it destroy everything? Including those pesky nanoprobes? Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) The Tarkalean Borg’s bodies would very likely degrade due to prolonged exposure to vacuum, on account of them being only partly assimilated., and the ship was vaporised by the charges and the torpedoes. # oregano on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 7:25 pm: I will note one thing--T'Pol thinks it'll take 200 years for the Borg signal to reach the Delta Quadrant. Is that the nearest edge of the Delta Quadrant? The Delta Quadrant supposedly occupies one-fourth of the galaxy. She should have given a range of numbers, since she doesn't know where in the Delta Quadrant the signal would be received. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: Mostly true, although Archer did say it was “deep” in the Delta Quadrant. Not precise enough, perhaps for a specific figure, but at least it wasn’t nothing. :) Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) She may be assuming the signal was sent to the central point of the quadrant. # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 7:34 pm: So... simply amping up the power to the phase pistols made them more effective against the Borg? That's funny, because would that have been tried at some point in the (relative) previous encounters with the Borg? From the initial meeting with the Borg on, the trick was to modulate phaser frequency, not just pump more power into the things. Does this make sense? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: I’ve been rethinking the related nit I posted, and I think I was totally wrong about this, because actually, the very first Borg drone that was killed in Q Who (TNG) was killed when Worf raised the power setting on his phaser. Only after it died and the second one appeared to take its place was that one adapted to the phaser beams entirely. Since Enterprise phase pistols are probably not as powerful as the first setting on the phaser Worf tried using on the first drone in Q Who, it does kinda make sense that Enterprise-era phase pistols wouldn’t be able to initially do anything at all. The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 8:03 pm: Why is it that increasing the power to phasers in this episode will harm the Borg but this tactic doesn't work when Worf tries it in Q Who. (Though these Borg are from the same group who were gunned down by holographic bullets so maybe they're all defective) LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: It most certainly did work in that episode. Watch it again. He fires on it, and the phaser beams are absorbed/deflected by the drone’s body. The drone’s personal shields don’t even manifest themselves. Picard tells him to use whatever means necessary to neutralize him. Worf raises the power setting, fires again, and kills the drone. When the second drone appears to take his place, he is adapted. His shields become visible when Worf tries the same thing.:) Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) The phase pistols use in Enterprise are early, and relatively, primitive weapons – it may not be possible to modulate the frequency. # So, the Tarkelian Borg just stuck some tubes into the wall and the entire wall changed instantly? Are you kidding me? I don't buy that at all. The nano-probes are designed to reconfigure whatever they are injected into! # But that's nothing compared to the experience of the good doctor. First, let's keep in mind that the Borg in this episode are effectively on par, technology-wise with the drones of First Contact. The nanoprobes in that movie worked really, really fast. So... why exactly does Phlox wander around for the whole episode with nanoprobes in him without becoming a Borg? Shouldn't they have assimilated him at a near-instant clip? What was up with that? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: He told Archer the nanoprobes were having trouble with his immune system. The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 8:03 pm: So Phlox's immune system is extremely resiliant to Borg nanotechnology eh? I'm no biologist, but I thought an immune system could only defend against something that it has encountered before. (I'm basing this off of what I can remember from high school biology so I could be wrong) fred longacre on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 10:06 pm: From what I remember from high school biology, the immune system will respond to any infiltration of the body, with white blood cells. Then the body will try to produce antibodies to stop the invasion. Maybe the Denoblian (sp) immune system is even more advanced then ours. Also, didn't the guy make the comment before being assimilated that the Denoblian's had been working with nanotechnology. How do we know that he doesn't have nanoprobes already in his blood, that could be fighting the Borg nanoprobes ''' # So... in another bit of sheer convenience, the Borg never gave their name when hailing the ship. This is odd, since we all know the classic refrain is "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." But, for some reason, that first sentence was dropped. '''Perhaps, due to their familiarity with NX-01, acquired from assimilated Starfleet officers, they didn’t see the point of identifying themselves. # So, people reading above will note that my potential problems with this episode started with the amount of the Borg sphere that was recovered in the Arctic. And boyyyyyyyyyyy, there was an awful lot of wreckage. First of all, I'm not up on my orbital physics, but wasn't the sphere orbiting above Montana? How'd all that wreckage get up there to begin with? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: First, it was firing at Montana. That doesn’t mean it was in geosynchronous orbit above it. Second, even if it were over Montana, that doesn’t mean it won’t re-enter the Earth and land at a different point. If I’m not mistaken, I don’t believe the space shuttle stays in orbit right over Cape Canaveral when it begins its descent in order to land there. Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) Besides, the wreckage was blasted there by the force of the explosion that destroyed the sphere. Any wreckage that would be expected to land elsewhere was probably vaporised by the explosion #Anyway, my oh my did I not believe the amount of wreckage they had accumulated there. Not for a second. IIRC, a significant portion of the upper sphere was blasted away. # Interestingly, with all the modifications they made, the Borg never gave themself shields, thus allowing Archer and Reed to beam directly in when they needed to. Mighty convenient. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: True, but the Borg weren’t exactly able to assimilate the entire Arctic transport at once. Besides, the same thing happened in loads of Voyager episodes too. Even the shields in Best of Both Worlds partII (TNG) was simply an “electromagnetic field” that our guys could penetrate simply by flying a shuttle through it. # ClaytonRumley on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 7:46 pm: The nit I saw that no one else has mentionned yet is why was the archaeological expedition was so heavily armed for an expedition to the arctic circle? One of the archaeologists made some crack about polar bears, but if memory serves correct, polar bears don't live in the arctic circle but further south in the tundra. They (being the archaeologists) weren't expecting to find dangerous aliens. The bears could have been forced north for some reason. # The Undesirable Element on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 8:03 pm: T'Pol tells Archer that Cochrane was frequently intoxicated so that is why he was carrying on about the people from the future. One would think that after becoming a global hero, Cochrane might have cut down on his excessive drinking, or at least not appeared drunk in public enough for it to become common knowledge. TJFleming on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 7:30 am: Kind of like being elected President and yet not keeping it in one’s knickers? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: When you look at many historical luminaries, you see that one has little to do with the other. Addiction isn’t something that abates with great fame, wealth or stature. If anything, it tends to be exacerbated by it, especially when you look at many celebrities today, whose addictions become public knowledge every day, TUE. # What was wrong with Picard in First Contact? He just left all of this Borg wreckage (and it was quite a significant amount) just laying around for our heroes to find? Based on what was seen on the viewscreen, he probably believed that any pieces of the sphere that were not vaporised by the explosion were destroyed by the re-entry. # In this episode, T'Pol tells Archer that the Borg sent the signal to somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. This is consistent with TNG/DS9/VOY's techniques of identifying quadrants; however, in the original movies, quadrants are always referred to as though they're smaller ("We're the only ship in the quadrant," Kirk says in one of the movies). It was in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, where he could be using quadrant to describe an area comprising multiple sectors/star systems. # T'Pol tells Archer that it will take a subspace signal about 200 years to reach the Delta Quadrant. In Voyager, it was stated that it would take 75 years at maximum warp (warp 9.9) to reach Earth. Isn't subspace communication at least as fast as that? Shouldn't it reach the Borg in less than a hundred years? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: Good point. Is it possible that in 2153, Vulcan/Earth subspace technology is not as advanced as the Borg’s, and that there are different speeds for it? The Encyclopedia mentions “booster relays” used to increase the speed of subspace radio signals. fred longacre on Wednesday, May 07, 2003 - 10:06 pm: I think in a few of the Star Trek books, they say that subspace radio wasn't as fast. I can't remember the book-it's the one with Captain Bozeman taking control of the Enterprise E-but in the book, there is a comment about subspace radio not being able to contact Starfleet Command quickly for "twelve years later" after the episode Balance of Terror. As the Borg were using 22nd century technology, it would make sense that it would take the message that long. # Why didn't the Borg head for the transwarp corridor that exists less than one light year from Earth (as seen in Endgame). Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 4:39 am: Since that corridor was only seen in Endgame, which was after First Contact, I think it is safe to assume that the corridor was a recent creation of the Borg & would not exist in the 22nd century. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: For all we know, they were heading for it when they encountered the Tarkalean freighter.Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) In any case, it looked to me as if it was a one way corridor. # Trike on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 12:49 am: The Borg nanoprobes failed to reactivate for 100 years after crashing into the earth, but they did once they were brought in from the cold. They could have gone into hibernation mode, due to the extremely low ambient temperature at the crash site. # Archer ordered his coffee by speaking to the computer. I thought 22nd century computers didn’t have voice recognition. Sparrow47 on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 7:19 am:''The one in the mess hall apparently does. T'Pol gave it a voice command in Unexpected. ''Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) It could be an experimental unit. # Where did the phase rifles come from? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: They may have been plasma rifles. # Spockania on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 2:19 am: Just An Observation- This "archaeological expedition" was reporting to Starfleet. I thought this was a nit, but sitting here something occurred to me. I think that they just discovered the debris recently. They seemed surprised at the age (understandably). I think that the science team may have been some future equivalent to the NTSB combined with the Coast Guard. That could make sense for 2 reasons. 1) The debris could have been uncivered fairly recently by the strong winds. 2) Humanity has been unable to invetigate this site before, due to them being too busy recovering from the post atomic horror. # When Malcolm and his team evacuate the section they need to go through SEVERAL secure doors/hatches. Wouldn't they only need to go through just one? If those doors/hatches aren't to provide compartmentalization in case of air loss, what are they for? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: They went through two. The door leading from the corridor to the Jefferies Tube terminal, and then the hatch at the top of the Tube. It would appear to be set up in the same position as an elevator. You step into the space where the hatch is, and then go down it. Maybe it’s a redundancy to ensure against depressurization in case of hull breaches during a battle. # When the Borgified Tarkelians escape, Archer orders the hatches sealed, but they still go through at least one Jeffries Tube sliding hatch just by touching the switch. Shouldn't these hatches lock closed? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: First, he didn’t order the hatches sealed, he said to seal off the maintenance shafts. The Tarkeleans may have not been using maintenance shafts. Second, this is a nit on Archer’s part. He should contact the bridge, not Reed, and tell them to seal off the shafts, something that can presumably be done only from a command console, or at the very least, from a wall panel interface. How is Reed supposed to do this if he’s busy going after the Tarkaleans? # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 4:39 am: It's a shame that archeologist didn't share the crew's love of old movies. If he had watched a couple of old horror movies he would have known better than to have stayed there all alone with the alien bodies. He saw no reason to expect problems. # My nephew, Brandon thought the Tarkalean Borg moved a lot faster than other Borg. The regular Borg are incumbered by lots of external adaptations! # Why did it have to be a public speech? Couldn't the writers have had Cochrane's time travel tale be something that some rag sheet reporter overheard a drunk Cochrane say once? Then it would be more believably dismissed then a public speech. Perhaps Cochrane chose to relate in in public precisely in order to get it out to a large group of people, in order to minimise the risk of it being dismissed and covered up. # Amazingly Phlox in the 22nd century found a cure for Borg nanoprobes that 24th century doctors missed. Even Voyager's Holodoc, who supposedly has the medical records of lots & lots of doctors, somehow missed the whole "zap 'em with omicron radiation" technique. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: Not necessarily. For all we know, that’s the exact method Crusher used to restore Picard at the end of The Best of Both Worlds partII (TNG), and later Voyager’s Doctor with Seven in The Gift (VOY). Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) It was more likely banned due to the dangers it posed to non Denobulans – Phlox stated that, in order to ensure the total elimination of the nanoprobes, he would need to use an excessive dose of omicron radiation, which could be fatal to other species. # Marc Lechowicz on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 8:12 am: First thing: When Enterprise comes upon the transport and the Tarkalean vessel, he orders Hoshi to hail them. She immediately hails the attacking vessel. How did she know which ship to hail? Archer didn't specify. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: She knows how to identify an Earth vessel, even a modified one, particularly by using her console. Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) Besides, in this situation, it makes more sense to hail the attacking ship, in order to try and persuade them to stop what they are doing. Indeed, that could be standard protocol in situations such as this. # If the Tarkaleans have already been taken, why are the Borg still firing on the ship? ClaytonRumley on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 11:59 am: Because they were carving up the Tarkalean ship to provide material for further expansion of their vessel. # If Phlox is so concerned about Hoshi's safety, why does he let her stay and feed the animals first? Doesn't that increase the risk of him attacking her? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: He’s distracted with other things, namely the prospect of turning into a drone, and his attempts to prevent it.Seniram 15:50, November 6, 2018 (UTC) She pointed out that it would allow her to repay him for the kindness she has recieved from him in the past, while enabling him to concentrate on his work. # For that matter, why is Phlox being allowed to stay in sickbay? There are a lot of potential weapons there. To be safe, he should have been put in the brig, or at least confined to quarters.'''LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: So how is he supposed to reverse his condition?' # If the researcher is no longer human, how is Archer able to identify her? Obviously she still had some human DNA in her, but it would have been nice if Archer'd mentioned that. LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 7:38 am: I assumed that that’s what his tricorder used to I.D. her. They were also provided many photos of the drones by Starfleet. Perhaps he recognized her face. # ClaytonRumley on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 11:59 am: Also, T'Pol reported that there were 29 lifesigns on the borg ship (maybe I imagined that number). By my count, there were 3 archaeologists from Earth, 2 tarkaleans from the transport (the ones in sickbay)...where did the others come from? Were there more taken from the transport before the borg ship fled? I think I missed something. There were more than 3 archologists taken from Earth, plus the other crew from the frieghter. # LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, May 08, 2003 - 1:30 pm: There are, of course, at least two glaring continuity mutilations that no doubt every nitpicker will complain about. First, there was no indication in Q Who (TNG) of Archer’s encounter with the Borg, and I don’t wanna hear any nonsense about how no one “named” the Borg in this episode. It was always S.O.P. for Data to scour his noggin and the Enterprise databanks for past instances of situations that bore a resemblance to the one at hand. Up until now, I was content to accept the possibility that reports of the El Aurians rescued in ST Generations were filed away someplace, since they didn’t have visual records, proof, or possibly even detailed explanations of the people who they fled from. But here, we have LOADS OF PHOTOGRAPHS of Borg drones, which Data should’ve produced in that episode. The second bit of continuity acrobatics is Phlox’s discovery that omicron particles are harmful to the nanoprobes. Again, nothing was every mentioned of this in any of the TNG or VOY episodes featuring the Borg. Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to overlook these things because the episode was entertaining, and the latter bit an integral part of Phlox’s dilemma, but I was kinda hoping through the episode, that the Borg would destroy or tamper with the Enterprise’s databanks, and maybe that even this information might have been compromised when the assimilated portions of Phlox’s brain containing it was restored. But hey, ya can’t have it all. All records regarding the incident may have been strictly classified. # When Reed tells Archer in Act 3 that the drones are in maintenance shaft C, junction 12, he has to ask T’Pol what’s in that section, and then has to confirm with her that there’s an outer hatch there. Why does the Vulcan who joined the crew in the pilot know this, but the Starfleet captain whose father built the friggin’ thing not? Henry Archer only designed the warp 5 engine, not the whole ship. In any case, you can't expect the captain to remember every single fact about the ship! # Given Phlox’s predicament, why aren’t any of the science departments helping him examine the nanoprobes? Since he decided to look at the probes from an engineering standpoint, why aren’t any engineers in sickbay with him? Cutler’s a science officer, and cares very much about him. Why isn’t she there to help him? Either Archer or Phlox probably gave orders for as few people to be in sickbay, to minimise the danger, in case the nanoprobes managed to adapt to Phlox's immune system. # After Archer and Reed return from the transport, T’Pol asks him if he found the research team, and Archer responds that there isn’t anyone on that ship they can help anymore. Why is this? The transport has been disabled, as has the Borg circuitry on the Enterprise. Why not beam the drones off, and see if Phlox can treat them with the same treatment he’s using on himself? Sure, they’ve been fully assimilated, but there’s nothing that should indicate to him that they’ve passed a point of no return. Just because their bio-signs are no longer human doesn’t mean the assimilation process can’t be reversed. They may be too far gone for that. Category:Episodes Category:Enterprise